Dracula's Desires (12 page)

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Authors: Linda Mercury

BOOK: Dracula's Desires
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C
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26
The fairy tales of Dante and Milton have firmly rooted Lucifer as a creature of pride; charismatic, persuasive, convincing those around him with pure, flawless rhetoric to actively continue rebelling against God; the most unnatural act of all.
They were half right.
Lucifer truly was persuasive. His sin was not simply pride but that of despair. Despair, the father of sin, led Lucifer and his fellows to disavow their knowledge of their Divine nature.
What would lead beings made from pure love into the churning pit of despair?
The belief that their parent adored them no more.
 
—
Fallen Angels: A Literature Review
by Josephine O'Neill
J
ohn sat back in his chair, studying Maxwell over their chessboard. In the few days he had been in this hollow London, he had learned a great deal.
A chess game tells you everything you needed to know about someone—their very soul spelled out in letters of fire in front of you if you just bothered to look.
Maxwell was both adventurous and precise, a dangerous combination. He annotated every move with a cramped, neat script, but played with verve and style, attacking from the flanks at every chance. Somehow, he managed to sit tall and easy in his uncomfortable horsehair-stuffed chair. He smiled at everything, even when he lost the second game. It would have been unnerving to anyone else.
Anyone except John. He was tuned in to Fallen Angels. As a Guide, he had the ability to see beneath their surface and discern what their true needs were. Therefore, John saw his opponent's stress in the tiny tremble in his eyebrows and in the constant licking of his lips.
The angels here were playing a very deep game with Mina Harker as their linchpin. He tapped his chin, waiting for the Second Fallen to move.
“You know what we will do with your angel when he finally arrives?” Maxwell taunted John.
“Do tell.” John leaned his torso to the side, placed an elbow on the arm of his chair, and stroked his chin, the very picture of an engaged listener.
“We will strip him of his Ascension and pull him back into Headquarters with us. All your suffering will be for naught.”
“I see.” John pursed his lips. He did see. Maxwell needed to know if John would save him and his team, too. It all depended on what happened next. “Your move,” he prompted Maxwell.
With a flourish, the older man moved a pawn. The action told John everything he needed to know.
“You are careless with your queen,” John told Maxwell. “You endanger her at every turn.”
“Yet you are so eager to claim her,” Maxwell said.
“I'm French,” John replied. “If I see a woman neglected, I rescue her.” His long fingers caressed Maxwell's queen as she was whisked from the board.
Maxwell moved his king to what he saw as safety behind his pawns. “My king still eludes you.”
John pushed his bishop diagonally three boxes toward Maxwell's troops. “Yet your king is on shaky ground. Check.”
Maxwell cleared his throat. “Ah, the king. He is the most important piece, yet the most useless.” He tugged at the starched collar around his freshly shaved neck. John had observed that the too-night neckline chafed so badly that he sported red rashes. “Much like Guides.” He moved a knight toward John's king.
John merely smiled. “Guides are not kings, though.” He moved his rook horizontally on the board. “Check.”
Sweat broke on Maxwell's cheeks and punctured his veneer of being in control. “I am ready to leave the game,” he announced, gathering together as much of his dignity as he could find. He tipped the king over onto the board. “The king has fallen.” Maxwell quietly strode out of the parlor.
“So I see,” John murmured to the maid, knowing she pretended not to hear. “The king is dead. Long live the king.”
Let the word spread in the household. The Divine waited with heart-wrenching anticipation for Its children to return.
C
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27
“
T
his place gives me the creeps.”
The baby kicked Valerie in the kidney. “Just grab John-Dad and get out of here.”
“Cut it out, kid,”
Valerie said the same moment Lance instructed the child, “Stop beating up your mother.”
Valerie shrugged off the baby's blow. The three of them had taken refuge in an empty townhome across from the residence. All the shops in the city were fully stocked with everything from clothing to books to food though there wasn't a living soul in the city. As a result, both Lance and Valerie wore the latest men's fashions of the late 1890s.
Lucifer's ear hair, it felt good to be a man again.
“We can't just rush in there like half-assed raw recruits. We have at least five, perhaps six additional Fallen Angels, each with their own power set. One . . . woman with the power to disturb the very nature of space and time. We have no idea what they have done with John.” She focused her opera glasses on an open window. “I have him in sight.”
Lance crossed the room and blocked Valerie's window.
“What aren't you telling me?” he asked.
Valerie shut her eyes. He had caught her hesitation.
Her lover leaned his forehead to hers. “Tell me. No more secrets.”
Valerie rested her hands on his shoulders. “Let me show you.”
Again, Valerie opened her mind to Lance.
The candlelight set Ilona's tanned skin into gleaming like a low-slung moon. Vladimir touched his breastbone at the eager, breathless expression on his wife's face.
“Come to me, my husband,” his wife crooned, holding her arms out. The linen sheets slithered down to expose milk-white breasts and already erect brown nipples.
Vlad went to her willingly.
Unfamiliar, soft skin and warm, and the lavender female scent under his lips, tongue, and fingers made his head swim. As he kissed and touched his way down her body, he came to the Devil's Triangle. He stifled a niggling of unease at the complicated ruffles of wet skin. Instead, he merely parted the scalloped lips, and investigated as though he were becoming familiar with a new terrain.
Never in his life had Vlad touched his own skin this intimately. He had no concept of what would feel good on a woman. Ilona moaned sweetly when he stroked her with his fingers. When he touched his watering mouth to her, she clawed at his hair and screamed. Her thighs clamped tightly around his head, trapping him in hot musky heaven.
Not until the candles guttered too low for clear vision did Vlad remove his trousers and tuck between Ilona's wet thighs.
He rubbed the blunt head of his ivory cock between her slippery lower lips. Ilona bared her teeth as he circled her now-swollen nubbin. She writhed and blindly searched for him with her hips. “Please, put that in me,” she pleaded.
Heartened by her ardor, Vlad tucked the wide head at the gate of her pussy. Despite his careful movements, she impaled herself on his thickness.
“Sweet, sweet man,” Ilona whispered as her adored husband filled her with his beloved cock.
“That was my wedding night,” Valerie whispered in Lance's ear. “I gave her diamonds.”
“Wood smoke and lavender,” Lance whispered back.
“I cannot fail her again. She has suffered too much at my hands.”
“Radu bit her,” Lance stated.
She nodded, pressing her third eye against his. “He was always careless with his women.”
Three bites. Three unnecessary bites.
A vampire only needed to bite a person once. The blood taking was the easy part. The difficulty lay in the giving back of the Maker's blood, sweat, and tears.
To take and not give back by the sweet embrace of Death, the sharing of pleasure, or the kiss of eternity was anathema to vampires. Without the oblivion of tears, sweat's purity of purpose, and the intimacy of blood, a mortal mind would crumble from the burden of the bite. Both Ilona and Mina had paid too high a price for Radu's vanity.
As always, Valerie was stuck with cleaning up Radu's messes.
C
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28
R
adu Tepes loved Istanbul more than any other city in the world. Eight million human souls and an untold number of paranormal citizens made Istanbul the true capital of the world. Even better, the city kept its streets tidy. Radu hated cleaning up after himself.
At ease in his form as a large black dog, he trotted through the tiny, winding streets of the ancient Sultanahmet district, the oldest section of all Istanbul. Ears held high, he passed the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar, checking in on his charges.
Outside one of the fishing boats, he sat on his haunches and wagged his tail. A snack of fresh fish soared through the air. With an adorable
woof
, he grabbed it midflight.
Some of the best memories of his life were in Istanbul. His boyhood home in Romania was ruggedly beautiful, but oh-so-primitive compared to the sophisticated, cosmopolitan amenities of the city. The parties, the smooth, graceful lines of the buildings added into the sheer civilization of
bathing
showed him the folly of his backwoods rearing.
And the food! Radu licked his chops. Fish pulled from the Sea of Marmara, lamb from the interior, pomegranates, and spices.
Istanbul had been ancient when he arrived six hundred years ago, and like a woman, only grew more vibrant and complex with age. Why had he even bothered with the United States? The sheer amount of bustle and color dwarfed even those newer, taller cities.
Of course, as a dog, he couldn't see color, but he could still appreciate the women. The women ranged from tiny, bossy Asian women who barely topped his dog's head, to tall blond American women with their big breasts, to African women with their courage worn bright on their brows.
He sat himself in front of an Indian couple dining in his favorite restaurant and literally applied his puppy-dog eyes.
“That is our dapper man,” the waiter told the diners. “Never dusty, always shining. Not a flea on the boy. He showed up one night and now he rules all.”
The woman laughed and threw him a deliciously spiced hunk of chicken.
Radu gave her a dog laugh and moved down the street. He entered the main chamber of an ancient palace being excavated under the street. His months as a dog had cooled his resentment and shame, taught him contentment. The shock of his brother's, or more accurately, sister's, secret forced him to reconsider his dreams.
He'd become the ruler of this little world, this corner of Istanbul. Shadow Creatures were so much more forgiving of pride and secret plans. Unlike mortals, they understood how ruling could be bred into a being's very fiber. They appreciated someone who could enforce proper rule of law. Now, his subjects were moving from the shadows to the upper levels, finding jobs, eating regular meals. The crime rate had gone down.
In addition, his subjects dressed much better. They lived in one of the most fashionable cities in the world and everyone had dressed like zombies? Not allowed on his watch. Radu fluffed his fur in satisfaction.
The high-pitched whine of a television made him cock his ears. He tuned his attention to the small appliance a nearby restaurateur kept over the bar.
“In breaking news, Mr. Umar Mernissi, the spokesman for the troubled Consortium for Concerned Citizens, gave this press conference today in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.”
The picture swapped over to the international feed. Turkish subtitles scrolled along the bottom of the screen.
A perfectly put together blonde woman introduced the segment. “This is Angela Block reporting from Portland. In a stunning display of irony, Mr. Mernissi is giving his press conference here, at the Governor Hotel. Six months ago, this was where Radu Tepes, the disgraced leader of the CCC, stayed during the Twelfth Annual Paranormal Citizen's Conference. The very place where he was exposed as a double agent for the Nazis and the mastermind behind the attempted murder of Lance Soleil, the missing former director of the Tualatin Mountain Homeless Shelter.”
Radu thumped his tail at the picture they had chosen for him. He looked particularly good in that shotl.
“And now, Mr. Umar Mernissi.”
Umar looked about the same, perhaps a little thinner, a little tired. Radu couldn't fault the fit of his former employee's suit, either. He must have finally taken Radu's advice on how to dress. He shook his ears in approval.
With a flourish, Umar settled his papers onto the oak podium and gave the cameras a brief, businesslike smile.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press,” he began, “the last time I stood here, I witnessed the devastating destruction of an organization I had helped grow to international influence. The revelation of our former leader's secret activities saddened me not only on a personal level, but brought a violent backlash upon every paranormal citizen in the United States.”
Radu scratched his side. Whatever.
“After many months of investigation, Joe Carter, the advisory board, and myself, are both saddened and relieved to announce the dissolution of the Consortium for Concerned Citizens.
“We are proud of our many past triumphs, including being involved with the creation and passing of the Paranormal Citizens Act that granted PNCs asylum and civil rights in the United States.
“In the wake of this scandal, we can no longer function as efficiently as we once did. Even though I am supposed to have the eyes of a hawk, I failed to find the financial and ethical mismanagement of a formerly great organization. In my cooperation with Special Agent Katsumi Tanaka of the Federal Bureau of Paranormal Relations, we have found horrifying amounts of misappropriated funds and resources.
“Therefore, we will liquidate our remaining assets, pay our innocent employees, and fold the organization. It is a sad ending to a formerly great institution.”
The bartender and the restaurant owner's discussion of the clip drowned out the commentary on the television.
Radu flicked his ear in annoyance. Dissolve
his
organization, would they?

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